Due to all the tall weeds and no clear ground around us, we do with whatever we had that didn’t require cooking for breakfast. We weren’t even going to heat water for my previous little French press I’d been hauling with us. I had some jerky, finished some chips, and had a granola bar, before breaking camp and seeing out on the road again.
Fortunately we didn’t have to ride long before we find another Cassie’s and were able to get some coffee, and a slightly better breakfast. Would have preferred a cafe or diner, but this did the trick.

Our riding had been a bit slow most of the morning, but we finally got on track and the pace stated picking up. Wind being slightly behind us helped. We were actually moving along pretty quickly when we rode by a woman stopped on the side of the road. I could tell she was tying to get our attention, and braked. Jr, in front of me realising I was stopping did the same.

Shiela introduced herself and said she had a pizza place in the next town, about 15 miles up the road. Said her husband was a cyclist to and told us if we stopped she would feed us, and get us something to drink.

This wasn’t an offer either one of us could turn down, so gladly accepted. The next few miles went by quickly knowing we were going to be getting a good lunch. Before we knew it we were in Rushville, IL, and pulling into the parking lot of Pizza Unlimited. Shiela pulled in right after we did and welcomed us into her restaurant.
She quickly made us feel at home. We were gotten something to drink, food order taken, and were chatting away with her. Her husband, Tim, joined us, and we kept chatting. We talked about our, his riding, our route, and so much more. while we talked we enjoyed a nice salad and a wonderful pizza. It was a much longer than normal stop for us, but well worth it between the food, the friendship, and great advice we were getting.

Unfortunately, we did eventually have to say good bye, and get back on the road. Shiela gave us each a big bag of snacks she had stopped at home to make for us. Bananas, bars, raisins, trail mix… She didn’t allow us to pay for lunch, and was now giving us even more food. Such wonderful people!

Back on the road we started out moving well. Our pace was about as good as just before lunch, but it didn’t last. As the day wore on we started faltering. I had definitely had my share of bad days, so only fair that Jr was having one. He kept at it though and I did my best to keep him going, but it became evident that instead of getting to McLean, IL and the riding on past it a few more miles before finding a place to camp as we had planned wasn’t going to happen. McLean was going to be our new destination, and a well earned night in a hotel.

It was a grueling last couple hours, but we made it into town and checked in to a hotel. We had a couple beers from gas station by hotel as we settled in. There weren’t many options for dinner, and we settled on the all you can eat buffet at the truck stop across road from the hotel. Turned out to be a good choice and we got our money’s worth.

After dinner we wandered back to hotel, had a couple more beers, did laundry, and turned in for some much needed sleep.

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About Douglas Sawyer, MS, ATC

I am an athletic trainer who is also a very avid athlete. My first love is running, but I also love cycling and triathlons and many other activities. I'm not a swimmer though, I just don't drown for 2.4 miles...
As a athletic trainer I work with sports injuries. I currently work at a school with athletes in 7th-12th grade in a wide variety of sports.
I can be found on twitter at two different names:
@IronmanLongRunr - where I tweet about run, bike, tri, & more
@Longrunr - where I tweet about athletic training

Sorry about delayed response. My head wasn’t kept all that cleanly shaven. i did carry a razor with my the whole way, but was only able to use it when we were at hotels, since none of our campsites after first night had running water. fortunately shaving 2x a week was enough to keep it under control.
And yes, pizza lady & hubby were awesome. Met lot of great people like them along the way. Too bad you won’t meet many on your cross country bike ride 🙂